from the left bank
of the river. For here were not only rooms as comfortable as those at
Dernau, but beds as well, a "wirtschaft" to serve as a mess hall, and
stables for all the horses. The town held only Batteries E and F, and
therefore allowed more elbow-room than did Dernau, where all six
batteries of the regiment had been crowded in. Later the rest of the
regiment moved up from the valley, after Colonel Reilly returned to the
command of the regiment at the beginning of February, and Ringen, first
on the main road from Neuenahr and Ahrweiler, assumed more importance
than ever, though regimental headquarters was farther on, at
Vettelhoven, and the First Battalion headquarters were at Geldsdorf, six
kilometres away.

[Illustration: The Sergeants in front of the Battery Office at Ringen,
Germany]

[Illustration: Picket Lines in the Snow at Ringen, Germany]

[Illustration: Home at Last--The Leviathan Steaming up the Hudson]

[Illustration: Ready for the Review by General Pershing. March 16, 1919]

Only a week had passed by at Ringen when the battery received the sad
report of Captain Waters' death, in the hospital at Coblenz, whither he
had gone from Dernau. He had been a private of Battery E when it went to
the Mexican border, and esteemed the privilege of commanding that same
battery very highly, containing, as it did, his early associates in the
ranks.

Two days later the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Redden struck the men an
even harder blow. The men of the Second Battalion gave him their full
devotion when he had been their major. When Colonel Reilly had been
raised to the command of the 83d infantry brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel
Redden had led the 149th Field Artillery through the hardest days of the
war, accepting the most arduous tasks and heaviest responsibility. And
when the men of the regiment followed him on the long hard march into
Germany, they looked forward to the day when he should lead them home.
In addition to the capacity to command, he had the quality to inspire
admiration, respect and love in his men. They felt, when the news of his
death reached them, that they had lost not alone a capable and admired
commanding officer, but indeed a highly esteemed and dear friend. The
funeral, at Coblenz, Saturday, January 18, was a splendid military
tribute, the entire regiment marching behind the caisson that bore his
body up the side of the Kartause to the hillside overlooking the Moselle
river, where